I am having a discussion with people and they are stating that it is common for people to need a circ later in life. Is there some info on this that I can back myself up? I know doctors rush to circ at any sign of an issue. Where is the info on this?

My father had one at 61 years old. From what I gather, (he's a bad diabetic) he was having chronic bad infections. I don't know much, we obviously don't talk much about his penis, but he hasn't had problems since. He says it was extremely painful and he was mad his mother didn't do it when he was born.

Our son had complications from his circ, and had surgery at 5 months to correct it. I said I don't want to circ future sons, and he gave me an earful. Didn't change my mind really, the torture of having to put your 5 month old to sleep over something so insignificant that WE caused by cutting off a body part at birth give me enough guilt to never want to do it again.

I've read & it makes sense to me that someone would "need" their prepuce amputated later in life if it wasn't cared for properly up until that time. Retracting to clean, using soap, illness & lack of health in other body parts (we're all connected, illness in one place doesn't happen in isolation), etc.

Thank you for speaking up for genital integrity!
Sus

Baby the babies while they're babies so they don't need babying for a lifetime.

My husband had BXO and it just would not heal and the scar tissue was so tight and it was just a terrible cycle of tearing and healing(scarring) and tearing again. I wouldnt say its a common problem but it happens. He is glad he got to enjoy his foreskin for the first 30 years of his life at least, and he would never allow our infant son to get circumcised just because he had problems later on in his adult life.

This is an issue that perks my interest big time because DS got circumcised at age 11 for phimosis, which was noted by the Dr after treatment for an infection that cleared up after a day on antibiotics. This was pre-internet, so information was virtually impossible to access. I did put up a good fight, but it was based on gut instinct and I had no real ammo to argue with.

When I did gain access to the internet, I learned that the urologist was out to lunch for many reasons: It is quite normal for an 11 year old to not be retractable (average age of foreskin retraction in intact cultures is 10 1/2). That phimosis can be cured by many methods from Betamethasone cream and stretching to various techniques of preputioplasty. Infections are easily cured with Antibiotics. Cancer of the penis is VERY rare - and can affect circumcised penises, though not as often. this was the ultimate threat by the urologist to us.

The bottom line is that in western cultures, circumcision is performed far too often, when less invasive procures could have been employed. So, to answer the OP's original question - I would search www.cirp.org , in particular, www.cirp.org/library/treatments/phimosis as I do recall a paper written by man called Rickwood, if I remember correctly, on exactly this. (He is study was in U.K.)

MountainMamaGC - just curious if your DH's doctor suggested or even tried any remedy before circumcision to treat the BXO? I have read some that were of the opinion that BXO is the ONLY issue that requires a circumcision, however, I have also read papers claiming some success with treatments utilizing Carbon Dioxide lasers.

Kudos to both of you for not letting your Dh's unfortunate situation from influencing your decision to keep future sons whole!!

MountainMamaGC - just curious if your DH's doctor suggested or even tried any remedy before circumcision to treat the BXO? I have read some that were of the opinion that BXO is the ONLY issue that requires a circumcision, however, I have also read papers claiming some success with treatments utilizing Carbon Dioxide lasers.

Kudos to both of you for not letting your Dh's unfortunate situation from influencing your decision to keep future sons whole!!

We read about that but we live in a very remote community and it would take a lot of repeat trips to have it done and so we just went with the surgery.

My guess would be to look for statistics in countries that accept intact men as the norm. That happens to be most countries, but make sure it is a country where that has been in effect for several generations, of course. I do not have any links specific to the general question being asked, however, this starts to get at it in part:

Anything requiring circumcision later in life is very rare. To amputate healthy tissue, that is important to full sexual function and feeling for both the individual and his partner goes against widely held view of ethics and philosophy. It is perhaps easier to use an example that is quite similar.

We could prevent many health issues and old age conditions that affect men by castrating them as boys or in their early twenties. In fact, this was done in the past to preserve their beautiful singing voices. Look up "castrati" if you are curious. But I am sure you are appalled at this suggestion. Consider why that is.

Or consider that we could prevent breast cancer in large part by removing a young girls' breast buds before puberty. And we have easy and acceptable ways to make alternative arrangements for feeding infants, so we do not have to use breast feeding. Again, I am sure you are appalled at this suggestion. Consider why that is.

The only reason we are quick to wonder why it might be good to amputate a foreskin is because we do not put high value on them. Our culture has been biased to think that foreskin are of little value at best, often biased to think the foreskin is bad. This makes it easy to look at the potential benefits and not take into account the harm or loss of these unknown benefits.

Under this biased way of viewing the issue, removing something with little use to potentially prevent a very unlikely disease or problem seems like a good idea. But if we valued the foreskin, then it would be as appalling as the two examples above.

There ARE some valid reasons. o circumcise later in life...but it isn't nearly as common as it seems. We've all heard the stories of how someones uncle's barber's cousin who "needed" it done, or more rarely, actual know someone, it is a skewed and innaccurrate perspective.

According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, for every 1000 babies who were NOT circumcised, about 10 will need to be circumcised later in life for a medical reason. Interestingly, they also say that for every 1000 CIRCUMCISED babies, about 10 babies may need to have the circumcision done again because of a poor result. Surprising and unexpected huh?

So, it is not only that it is uncommon for intact kids (1%) to need to be cut later in life, just as many cut kids (1%) will be cut TWICE. Who's that for a powerful argument against circumcizing in the first place?

I think that even the Canadian Pediatric Society's estimate of 1% intact boys needing to be circumcised later in life is much higher than would be expected in an intact society. Remember that both Canada and the U.K. were circumcising nations. There is at least one article at www.cirp.org that claims far too many boys are circumcised for either misdiagnosed issues or problems that could have been resolves without amputation. That study was in the U.K. In Edward Wallerstein's book: Circumcision, an American Health Fallacy, he states that in Finland only one in over 16,000 men will die without his foreskin. That seems to be exceptionally good odds that a boy will keep his foreskin for life, PROVIDED that no uninformed caretaker or doctor get their hands on him!

My best friend came from a long line of religious Jews. She married a man who refused to circumcise their son. Her husband died soon after the birth of the son. My friend's little boy had several UTIs as a child, so when a urologist suggested that the boy be circumcised, she went ahead.

I think if the father had lived, the boy's body would have stayed intact. But my friend had no support in that regard.

So, to the OP, a man needs a circumcision later in life if the doctor says so.

I think if the father had lived, the boy's body would have stayed intact. But my friend had no support in that regard.

So, to the OP, a man needs a circumcision later in life if the doctor says so.

So true!! Sadly in North America, most of our doctors are so ignorant of the normal form and function of intact male genitalia, and are so arrogant that they think they know better than nature (evolution), that all they seem capable of doing is cutting off every foreskin that they have the opportunity to do so.